In Loving Memory
by ThereIsOnlyZuul
Summary: Shelly Webster and Eric Draven are unjustly murdered the night before their wedding but their tragic deaths are not the end. The Crow has other things in mind and when it resurrects Shelly to let her restless soul seek her revenge, the dangerous streets of Detroit will run red with the blood of those who wronged her.
1. Return From the Dead

This is a story that I started writing a long time ago and have posted on FanFiction before but under a different pen name, so **I did not steal this piece - it is my work!** I just had some troubles on this site and had to disappear for a while. So again, my work, I'm not re-posting from another author.**  
**

Now, the plot of this story is a re-telling of The Crow movie from the perspective of the lovely Shelly Webster. It's M for language, sexual themes, violence. Hope you enjoy it, review it if you do - cheers!

Disclaimer: The Crow is the property of James O'Barr

* * *

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it, and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes–just sometimes–the crow can bring that soul back, to put the wrong things right…

* * *

It all seemed to happen at once.

Where once there was a white void there was now a universe of heat and cold, hard shapes, physical laws. Pain. So much pain. Physical pain for a body that felt so bizarre and unfamiliar. Pain for memories that were blurry and mute, like they had been someone else's taken from their mind to be put into hers.

But they were hers. Whether she realized it or not.

_So dark__…__ so cold__…__ so alone. Where am I? Who am I?_

She tried to move but found herself boxed in on all sides. She wanted to lay still and breathe: just try to remember, or forget. Whatever was easier.

Instinct–or something close to instinct–told her differently though.

Up.

She needed to go up. It was the first step to figuring all of this out.

She began to push. All her strength, all her weight: pushing up.

Up.

Up.

Pushing. Digging. Clawing her way into the world of the living.

A shock of cold air. The caw of a big bird: a crow, perhaps.

'_So__…__ close__…_' she found herself thinking. The words formed so clearly in her head, but when she tried to bring them to her lips, they became nothing but yells: animal-like shrieks.

'_Scream_ _the_ _animal_ _scream_…' she found herself thinking.

Up.

Up.

Clawing ever upwards.

And then… out.

Finally out.

Crawling and dragging herself along the frozen ground. Reborn.

As she lifted her eyes from her own cold and bloodied hands, she spoke her first words at the sight that befell her. "Here lies Shelly Webster... 1969 – 1993… Let her spirit forever rest in peace… In loving memory..."

She began to shake, and not from the cold. Tears blurred her already blurry vision. How could such a simple and plain gravestone cause this feeling. Unless…

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the place from which she just emerged. A hole dug deep into the frozen Earth in which she had just pulled herself out of. A grave to match the simple gravestone.

She had just dug herself out of a grave.

Shelly Webster's grave.

She gasped as the memories running through her head suddenly became clear. They became so intense, they were like movie scenes playing through her head: a film projector behind her eyes. A handsome young man walking with her down a night time street. Holding the man's hand. Kissing him. She was in love with him: madly in love with him. He dropped her off at an apartment... their apartment. But _their _apartment wasn't empty. There were other men there, and they were violent... so violent...

But they didn't die. Not from that. Not yet.

"Death… came after…"

She was Shelly Webster. These things happened to her. This strange, cold, little body was hers. And she was dead. Or she had been dead. But… but she was living now. Living _again_.

The images stopped suddenly. Nearly as suddenly as they started. The images, they were part of her memories now, but they weren't overpowering. Some were still blurry, but she knew they would come later.

"This… this is the real world…" she mumbled as tears slid silently down her face. "There's no coming back… How am I here? Why am I here?"

* * *

Across town in a tiny arcade in a grungy back street, four very unsavoury characters lurked throughout it. FunBoy, the strung out morphine junkie lingered in the dark tapping his arm for a vein he hadn't ruined with junk. Tin Tin, a knife man, twirled a blade as he watched Skank, the SPEED addict (which more than often also made him the equivalent of a raving lunatic) bang against a pin ball machine that had gotten the best of him.

The leader of the group, T-Bird, whose specialty was arson, set a homemade bomb on the top of an air hockey table. "You know, Lake Erie actually caught on fire once from all the crap floating around in it. I wish I could've seen that." With a shrill whistle, he signalled to the others to finish with their fun and ditch this place.

The others laughed as they roamed around smashing the arcade games. This was a routine gig for them, but just because it was routine didn't mean it wasn't fun. They reveled in the broken glass, the mindless violence of destruction. Murder and rape came just as easily: the screams, the blood, the pain, it was the icing on top of the criminal cake that was their lives. Of course, tonight was just the starter. Tomorrow was Devil's Night–the night before Halloween–and that's when the real destruction would start.

T-Bird set the timer on the bomb. "One minute mother fuckers. Lets clear out!" FunBoy pocketed his junk, Tin Tin put on his battered, knee length leather jacket, and Skank simply obeyed T-Bird's every word and ran out without even a glance back at the destruction he had so lovingly handcrafted.

The four of them piled into T-Bird's big, red hotrod and drove off to enjoy their latest mayhem from a distance. They would drink at their favourite bar: a seedy place called The Pit and part ways for the night. FunBoy would shoot up and bang his favourite junkie whore Darla, Tin Tin would turn a profit at Gideon's pawn shop, and T-Bird and Skank would terrorize the streets. Then tomorrow, they would meet up, pile into T-Bird's car again and have some fun causing _real_ chaos.

"Fire it up! Fire it up!" T-Bird began to chant. It was their battle cry, in a way, and now seemed like the perfect time to do it. Nothing could bring them down. Not the cops, not other gangs: nobody. So why not chant? Why not live it up? "Fire it up! Fire it up! Fire it up!"

Their bomb's timer reached zero and the arcade blew, illuminating the night sky with a fire ball and a shout to the heavens that could bring an angel to their knees.

"Nothing can stop us now, boys. Absolutely-fucking-nothing!"


	2. Foggy Memories

Shelly had sat and stared at her gravestone for what felt like an eternity. In the faint light of the cemetery, she read and re-read the simple inscription on her grave.

Shelly Webster.

1969 to 1993.

Let her spirit rest in peace.

In loving memory.

Beside her own grave was that of a man named Eric Draven. Born one year before her. Died on the same year.

Eric. She recognized the name. She knew she had some connection to him, but she just… couldn't remember. She felt oddly at peace not being able to remember. Something inside of her told her not to get used to that though: the feeling of peace.

It began to rain. Shelly knew it would: the sky was blanketed in thick clouds, coloured a deep purple from the light pollution. Shelly could also tell that winter was close. The way the rain fell, lethargically, the big droplets seeming to just drop to the ground without bursting, it was like it too knew that the bleak, frozen winter was approaching. It wasn't until the rain had soaked through Shelly's funeral clothing (her wedding dress from what she could make of the stained and ripped fabric clinging to her) and made her already cold body begin to shake, that she felt compelled to move. Compelled to leave her gravestone and search for answers.

As she stood on her shaking legs for the first time since whenever she had been dead, she noticed a large crow watching her from a low branch in a leafless, dead tree. It cocked its head at her and stared with its beady, black eyes. It cawed loudly and flew off. Shelly felt the same pull to follow the crow as she had when she was crawling out of her grave. This was what she had mistaken for instinct. It was the crow. That crow had something to do with what was happening. The question as to why it had anything to do with her never crossed her mind.

She followed it.

* * *

The crow knew where it was going. It knew exactly where it was going. And unfortunately it lead her straight to the place she was more than a little hesitant to revisit… home. Her top floor loft with its red painted walls and its huge round window that overlooked the whole neighbourhood. As she ascended the stairs towards her loft her sense of peace seemed to slowly melt out of her. Sadness filled its place.

Shelly stood at the threshold of her loft for only a second, she gently touched the Halloween decoration of a skeleton still hanging on the door before pushing the door open. She entered slowly, her bare feet dragging across the dirty and warped hardwood floor. Her beautiful round window was smashed and let in the cold wind and rain. Very little remained in the loft: an old dresser, a wardrobe, a red lounge chair where a beautiful white cat had made itself a warm nest in which to sleep.

"Gabriel?" Shelly reached out to pet the cat that she had loved so dearly in life. He purred at the sound of Shelly's voice but her hand never made it to his head. Memories of what had happened came flooding into her head so quickly they burst like bombs behind her eyes.

She had been at the loft. She had undressed and gotten into her silk dressing gown. She had paced around the apartment with a book of poetry, absentmindedly petting Gabriel, awaiting the return of… someone. There had been a knock at the door.

"Eric?"

The door burst down. Four men stood in the doorway: one held a petition she had passed around the building about tenant eviction. "Department of Housing. Code violations, safety hazards... place looks fine to me… Let's redecorate."

The men stormed in. They trashed her loft. One of them picked up her cat. She cried at the thought of her cat in his barbarians arms. She cried harder as she, herself, was held in one of their arms.

"'Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.' It's pornography."

A tall, black man struck her across the face. She screamed and fell to the ground. Her silk dressing gown was ripped from her body.

"Shelly?" someone else had entered the apartment. A handsome man with a guitar slung across his back. The black man that had struck her threw a knife and he fell to the ground.

"Eric!"

Eric. Eric Draven. He had been an aspiring rock star. The lead singer and guitarist in a band called Hangman's Joy. He had hated the colour red and that's why she had teased him and painted the walls red. He had been handsome and kind. He was her lover. Her fiancée. Her best friend. They had been killed together. On the eve before their wedding. This was her connection. This is why she was buried beside him… she had died beside him.

But she hadn't died yet. And neither had Eric. He lay on the ground bleeding from a knife wound and watched as they raped her. All four of them.

Then Eric was shot and tossed out of the round window six stories to the ground below.

Shelly had died thirty hours later in intensive care. No, her body had died thirty hours later in intensive care, but her soul had died with the rape, and her heart had died with Eric.

Shelly screamed a scream of pure hate and rage and without a thought in her head she ran towards her broken window and threw herself out of it. Grabbing onto the window frame she saved herself before the six story fall. Broken glass still clinging to the frame dug into her hands. As she let go and fell to her knees on the floor the crow cawed and the deep bleeding wounds sealed quickly by themselves.

She couldn't be hurt. She couldn't be killed. Shelly suddenly knew why she had been brought back. She was here to fix the injustice that had befallen her and her lover. And she would do it one by one… she would fix this one… by… one…

* * *

"Hey that's good!" exclaimed Shank as he watched FunBoy throw a bullet in the air and shallow it with a shot.

"See if you can top that man! Can you top that?" FunBoy shrieked triumphantly.

T-Bird smiled crookedly as he picked up a bullet, showed it to those sitting around him, and placed it on his tongue. He picked up his overflowing shot glass and proclaimed: "Here's to Devil's Night, my new favourite holiday!" he tipped back his liquor and swallowed his bullet. Opening his mouth to prove he had swallowed it, he decided to take this already extreme act further: he placed his lit cigar on his tongue and ground it out.

"You sick fuckhead," laughed FunBoy in his wheezing, creaky laughter.

"Are you out of your motherfuckin' mind, man?" snarled Tin Tin.

Shank said nothing, just smiled and picked up his own bullet and shot. Tin Tin grabbed his arm before he could get either near his mouth. "What…?"

Tin Tin swallows his own bullet before replying: "Pussies drink last, man."

"Fuck you Tin Tin!" exclaimed Shank as he stood and pointed his gun at Tin Tin's head.

"Shit ain't even loaded, man." Tin Tin growled as he pulled a knife to Shank's throat.

"This one is." FunBoy pulled his gun and pointed it to Tin Tin's head. In return, Tin Tin pulled another knife.

"Which one of you Motor-city motherfuckers wants to bet me this one isn't?" shouted T-Bird as he pointed his gun at everyone in a quick procession.

After a tense moments pause they all pulled their weapons away from each other and began to pump their arms into the air as they shouted: "Fire it up! Fire it up! Fire it up!"

"Here's your shooters," stated a rough-looking, blonde waitress. "Put your guns away, huh guys?"

"How ya doin', Pussycat?" smiled FunBoy. The waitress smiled back and leaned down to kiss him. This was FunBoy's junkie whore Darla. She'd do anything and everything for a hit of morphine, and FunBoy exploited that on a nearly nightly basis; and, of course, tonight was no different.


	3. Realization

Shelly sat at what was once her most prized possession: an antique dressing table from the late eighteen fifties. It had first been her great grandmother's but it soon turned into a family tradition for it to be handed down through all the daughter's of the family as an engagement gift. Shelly had been the youngest woman in her family's line to receive it. Now… now it was nothing more than firewood. Damaged beyond repair, and even if it wasn't, Shelly would never have a daughter to present it to.

None of that mattered to Shelly though. She sat at the dressing table staring at a porcelain harlequin mask that hung from the frame. Memories of Eric sneaking up on her while he wore the mask running through her mind. One, in which she was peacefully napping on the couch, came to mind as he had snuck up on her and actually made her jump a bit. He had fallen to the floor laughing while she, still half asleep, tried to figure out what was so damn funny.

Shelly looked away from the mask, tears forming in her eyes. She instead busied herself with looking through the drawers of the dresser, but that hardly helped as they were filled with pictures of her and Eric. Her tears soon spilled down her cheeks as happier times ran through her mind.

Her and Eric cuddled on the couch: Eric pressed firmly to Shelly's chest, Shelly's arms wrapped tightly around him.

"I love you," she had said.

"Say that again," had been his reply, a dopey smiled pasted on his face.

"I love you!" she had happily exclaimed again.

Another memory of her trying to prepare dinner and having the whole pot go up in flames came to mind. She had stood at the stove in panic before Eric came and saved her. He dropped a pot lid over the flames before declaring with a smile that they would eat at a restaurant that night. And there was another of Eric just coming out to sit and watch her read a magazine. She had pretended not to see him at first, but the jig was up when she couldn't help but smile.

One of her memories was of her trying on her wedding gown and twirling about the room in it. She had spun, and twirled, and skipped around until she was dizzy. Another one involved her and Eric goofing around and her trying to spray him with shaving cream, only to have him over power her and douse her with it: all while she shrieked with joy.

The memories that she had been dreading the most suddenly came to her as she sat and wept. The memories of her and Eric when they made love. It had always been so perfect with Eric: loving and kind and completely passionate. It had always felt… right. She had never regretted it and always looked forward to it…

She couldn't bear it any longer!

It wasn't fair - everything that had happened to her and Eric. It wasn't supposed to be like this. They were supposed to get married and have beautiful babies and get the fuck out of this horrible city! But they couldn't now! The only thing Shelly had now were her memories: her bitter, heartbreaking memories!

She screamed and smashed her elbow into the dressing table's mirror: shattering it into a million little segments. She pushed all the candles off of it in rage, the crow staring at her curiously as she threw her fit.

In a moment of brilliance (although, perhaps it was insanity) she decided exactly what she was going to do. She grabbed a small bag of makeup that sat in the top drawer and went to work creating what was to be the face of fear for her enemies: a harlequin mask of violent proportions.

She painted her entire face stark white, staring at her ghostly reflection in the shattered mirror. She then circled her eyes in black lipstick from her bottom eyelash line to her eyebrows, pushing her dark hair out of the way as she went, and extending points from both her eyelid: top to bottom. She painted her lips with the same lipstick, extending a long line from each corner of her lips.

'_Just paint your face the shadows cry.'_

The crow flew down from its ceiling perch and landed on the huge dresser that stood in the corner. Shelly strode over to it: flinging it open. Her regular clothes had all but disappeared, but hidden in the back, in a chest she used to hide away her Halloween costumes, there remained one outfit: it was the outfit she would wear to Eric's gigs in the local punk and Goth clubs. It was a tight, black dress that fell just above her knees, with short sleeves and red ribbon that was corseted up the front and sides, ripped and ragged fishnet stockings, and a pair of knee-high combat boots.

"What better an outfit to go alone with my harlequin tears," she said as she rolled on the tights, pulled the slim dress over her head, and laced up her boots. She walked towards the bay window, the crow joining her on her shoulder. She knew what she had to do; staring down at the city that had destroyed her and her lover, she knew exactly what she had to do...


	4. Gone with the Wind

Tin Tin had been the first to leave the bar. He had a busy night ahead of him - tomorrow was Devil's Night, tonight was like a beautifully violent prelude full of theft, rape, maybe even a little arson so long as the high-ups didn't find out about it. His first stop, before all this though, was Gideon's pawn shop to hawk some stuff he had lifted off a woman he had mugged (among other things) earlier in the day.

"Couple more rings - that's twenty-four K." Tin Tin said as he handed Gideon the jewellery he had pried off of the woman's fingers.

"Twenty-four K, huh?" Asked Gideon with doubt. He had been in the pawn business a long time and he had known people like Tin Tin for just as long. They were only good for two things: mugging hapless people and trying to rip off pawn shop owners. "It's eighteen K. - crap! It's probably fake."

Tin Tin would not be deterred. "Another purse. Leather." He commented, raising his eyebrows.

Gideon snatched the purse, his own eyebrows raising at the snapped strap. "Jeez. Whoa, what is this Tin Tin, a bloodstain? I'll give ya fifty bucks for everything. But I hate charities. Now you, take it or leave it." Gideon slapped the money down on the counter while Tin Tin shot him looks. Gideon was used to this too. "Decisions, decisions."

Tin Tin eventually decided fifty was better than nothing, and grabbed the money. He counted it as he walked away. "Cheap ass, chrome dome, child molestin', saprophyte mother fucker."

"Close the gate when you go out." Gideon smirked as Tin Tin opened the door.

"Ah close this up for yo' reeeeal good, massah!" He exclaimed sarcastically, using an accent he remembered Mammy using in the movie _Gone with the Wind_. Fuck you were his last words before giving Gideon the finger and leaving the shop.

"Sit on it and twirl, you dirty scum!"

Outside the shop, Tin Tin pulled closed the gate before walking into the street. "Lucky I don't stab your fat ass." He muttered as he slunk into the darkness of a nearby alley.

Just blocks away from where Tin Tin was strutting, Shelly loomed on a rain drenched rooftop while the crow flew above her head. She shivered from the cold and the adrenaline that coursed through her system. Her dress fluttered behind her in the strong wind as her wet hair clung to her face. She stared up at the crow as it circled above her. It cawed suddenly and dove downwards into an alley. Shelly quickly followed after it: strong and swift. She hurdled rooftop obstacles and jumped from roof to roof at a speed she wasn't aware she could run. She wasn't afraid of falling - she wasn't afraid of anything anymore.

_'An upside to being dead, I suppose. Or maybe I lost my fear when they all came true…'_ She thought to herself as she tried to repress memories of her and Eric in happier times. Anyways, she had spotted the crow, it was hovering above an alley and then, suddenly, in Shelly's mind's eye she saw her first target - the first of the men that had drawn blood one year ago - Tin Tin. Shelly was sickened as she watched Tin Tin strut arrogantly down the alley. He stopped for a moment to light a cigarette in a burning oil drum and she knew it was time to strike.

She jumped from the roof of the building, landing like a cat on her feet. It hurt, but only for a second and this sense of invincibility made her laugh. Her laughter echoed ominously off of the dirty stone walls of the alley, making Tin Tin look up. He smiled as he saw Shelly's beautiful figure standing as a silhouette against the lights from the street. She began to stalk towards him, he licked his lips as he looked her up and down but has he saw her painted face, his looked turned to one of smug satisfaction. He probably thought she was high the way she looked, and girls with chemicals running through their veins always give it up so much easier than the others.

"What the fuck you all painted up for, baby, huh? Halloween ain't 'til _manana_. Now, wipe of that makeup and let me see what you've got hidden…" Shelly continued to stalk forward, showing no emotion. Tin Tin, realizing he'd have to put up a fight to get what he wanted from Shelly, grabbed a knife from the inside of his tattered jacket. "C'mon, crackhead. I like it rough."

Shelly rushed him, kicking over the fire drum, before pouncing. She head butted him, smiling that she had now been the one to draw first blood on him. Before he regained his composure, she jumped at him, knocking him backwards into a puddle. She slapped the knife out of his hand before flipping him over… holding him face down in the puddle. As he thrashed below her, all she could think about was how she had, one year ago, thrashed and struggled underneath him.

Before drowning him completely, Shelly grabbed his shoulders and threw him up and backwards, into a wall. He stood there coughing for second before he touched his broken lip. Shelly got closer but he caught her off guard and got in a clean hook to her face. Like before though, it only hurt for a moment: she even reveled in the pain before jumping at Tin Tin again.

Shelly pummeled him with her small fists before he got in another hit - this time to her stomach. This hit hurt more as she recalled that he had repeatedly hit her in the stomach as he raped her. She growled before charging at him again. He swung a few more times with his fist before Shelly, and her rage induced strength, overpowered him. She grabbed the collar of his tattered coat and tossed him against another wall. He sunk to the ground in obvious pain. She straddled him, grabbing a thick handful of his braided hair and holding his face close to her own.

Tin Tin smiled, licking blood from his lip. "You know baby, I do like it rough. Thanks for the foreplay."

"You murderer!" Shelly shouted as she slammed his head into the wall.

She had a momentary flashback of him standing above her, licking one of his knifes…

"I ain't murdered nobody, man!" Tin Tin yelled fiercely. "I don't fuckin' know you, bitch. What the fuck you want?"

"I want you to tell me a story." Shelly replied, her voice just above a whisper. "A man and a woman in a loft: a year ago."

Another flashback, this one of Tin Tin striking her across the face… tossing her to her bed…

"You're outta your motherfuckin' mind, bitch."

"Listen!" Shelly shrieked, slamming his head once more into the wall. "I'm sure you'll remember. You killed them… on Halloween."

"Yeah, yeah - look - on Halloween - yeah. Some dude, some bitch. Whatever." Shelly tightened her grip on his hair, digging her nails into his head, making him grimace and spit at her. She backhanded him roughly across the face just like he had done to her.

"His name was Eric! Hers was Shelly. You cut her. You raped her."

"Shelly…" Tin Tin muttered thoughtfully with a smile. "Yeah, I shanked her pink ass and she loved it! And as for that stupid white boy she was dating, he fell easier than dominoes!"

Shelly looked away as tears blurred her vision. She didn't want this monster to see her cry… didn't want him to see her cry again. Within this moment of weakness, Tin Tin took another punch: landing square on Shelly's chin, making her shoot up off of him. She stood dazed on her feet before Tin Tin kicked her feet out from under her. She landed on her side - hard - knocking the breath completely out of her. Tin Tin loomed over her. He stripped off his jacket in a fluid motion and tossed it to the ground.

"Murderer! Murderer!" Shelly screamed in rage as she struggled to stand. As memories of that night flew through her mind everything else went blank. The scars lining her body from Tin Tin's merciless cutting began to burn as did her inner thighs as she remembered the rape.

"Murder, bitch? Murder? Let me tell you about murder." Tin Tin laughed as he ripped a pipe off of the wall and came towards her. "It's fun, it's easy, and you gonna learn aaaallll about it." He stood above her, pipe posed to come down straight to her head. "But not to quickly of course. There's other parts of your body I'd like to inflict a little pain to first!"

The crow cawed somewhere from overhead and Shelly's pain disappeared. She felt strong and invincible again; and as Tin Tin brought the pipe down, she jumped up to catch it in mid-air. He stared in shock as she bounded to her feet, grabbed the pipe and tossed it away.

"You must be dusted on some strong shit to make you this crazy, bitch!" Tin Tin backed up: Shelly stood where she had fallen.

"You say you like it rough, Tin Tin. Prove it." She hissed.

Tin Tin pulled two knives out of his jacket and gestured at Shelly with them. "I'd like you to meet two buddies of mine. We never miss," he threw the first. That damn memory of Tin Tin licking his knife again. Shelly ducked, the knife missing completely. Tin Tin's smug look turned to one of worry. He lined up his second knife and threw it. Shelly batted it away with her hand as if she were a kitten bating at yarn.

"Try again! Try harder!" Shelly laughed as she stepped ever closer to Tin Tin. The time for fun was over. She was going to finish this.

Panicked now, Tin Tin yelled loudly as he threw a third knife. Shelly caught it easily between her palms and, in a blink of an eye, had thrown it back at him: struck him in the shoulder and all the way through to pin him to a stack of wooden pallets. Shelly slunk in quickly, pushing her arm roughly to his throat, holding one of his own knives high above her head. The terrified look in Tin Tin's eyes reminded her of herself and how she must have looked to his monster. Cocking her head to the left she smiled as she uttered: "Victims, aren't we all?"

She plunged the knife downwards.


	5. No Way to Run a Business

T-Bird and Shank slunk through the crowd of sweating, adolescent bodies that were covered with tattoos and piercings and dressed all in black with black make up running down every inch of their faces: complete androgyny among the sexes. Tonight they had gathered here to mosh to a girl-fronted band that sounded more than a little out of tune and looked a lot more out of place. The strobe lights blinking overhead made everyone on the floor look like they were all moving slowly: robotically.

T-Bird could hardly hide his disgust. These mindless, faceless teens had swarmed here to listen to a dreadlocked, tone deaf, horse-faced girl singer who T-Bird wouldn't have touched if you'd paid him too.

"Sexless fucking robots." He muttered under his breath as he pushed his way through the throngs of people. "I hope Top Dollar makes good money from these tools because I sure as hell wouldn't run my _business_ like this… Look at this mess! What's the world coming too?"

T-Bird was brought out of his inner thoughts and mutterings by calls of his name. He turned to see that Shank was desperately trying to push through the crowd to follow him. "T-Bird! Hey T-Bird!"

"I've gotta go up stairs: report from the front. Go to the bar for me!" he yelled over the din of the crowd. Shank obediently ran off and T-Bird continued towards the steel staircase that would lead him to Top Dollar's loft and office above this awful club.

Leaving the crowded dance floor was a relief, as was the quiet of the stairwell that lead to Top Dollar. At the top of the stairs stood Grange, Top Dollar's body guard and right hand man. He was talking up two white girls that had obliviously wandered away from the club. "Why don't you ladies look me up after the show?" he said as he ushered them away from the metal door he stood guarding by.

"Hey, guess what?" T-Bird asked as he lit up a cigarette. "Arcade Games fell down, went boom."

"Boom?" Grange smirked as he put his thin, gold frame glasses back on his face.

"Can you imagine that? It's tragic. The boss-man in?" T-Bird jerked his head towards the metal door.

"He's taking a meeting."

T-Bird exhaled smoke through his nose. He knew what that meant. "Tell him I'll be back."


	6. Part of the Problem

Gideon stood at the counter of his pawn shop, counting out the day's profit on the scuffed and dirty glass of the display windows, when he noticed the dark shadow that was moving closer and closer to his frosted glass door. Who ever cast the shadow stopped to stand right in front of the door.

"We're closed!" Yelled Gideon, confident in his words because of the locked metal grate that stood between him and whoever was on the other side of the door. "Go sleep it off someplace else, Dusthead! Unless you want to get mutilated!"

The metal grate–the one that Gideon had thought that Tin Tin had locked up–slid open and whoever wanted in was now one step closer and that made Gideon nervous. Grabbing a six shooter revolver from under the cash resigter, he strode towards the door where the shadowy figure had started to gently rap their knuckles against the glass.

"God damn creatures of the night! They never learn–"

The glass was smashed from the outside, cutting off Gideon's thought. Through the broken door stepped a girl dressed all in black and painted up like some kind of whore clown. A large crow flew in behind her, catching Gideon off guard and sending him backwards on his ass in surprise.

"What the fuck?"

"And suddenly there came a tapping, as if someone gently rapping, rapping on my chamber door," commented the girl as she stepped towards Gideon.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"I was gently rapping…" said the girl as she stepped ever closer. "Didn't you hear me rapping?"

"Rapping?" Gideon spat out in disbelief. "Your trespassing, that's what you're doing. And you owe me a new fucking door! Who the fuck are you?"

"Shelly," she muttered as she looked around Gideon's grimy shop full of shattered lives and broken dreams. An eletric guitar caught her attention. It was black and scuffed from age and use. It had been Eric's guitar. "Good. This is where all my wrongly taken belongings ended up."

"Shelly? I don't know no fucking Shelly! And I'll have you know everything in this shop was bought fair and fucking square!" He'd nearly had enough of his dusted up freak. He clenched his gun tighter.

_Bought fair and square?_ Shelly thought to herself. As she stared down at the pathetic, fat, greasy man who cowered before her she saw in the dim picture of her mind's eye that he held a gun. _Dare I point out the flaw in his logic? I think I'll have too._

"I'm looking for my engagment ring. Gold. Modest diamond."

"You're looking for a fucking coroner!" Gideon held up his gun and at point blank range, fired it into this petite freaks chest. She recoiled slightly from the hit, but didn't fall. Gideon stared in horror as the bleeding hole from his bullet closed cleanly and completely, leaving only her pale skin and a hole in her dress right below her collar bone. "Oh shit on me! Shit on me!" Gideon began to yell as Shelly swooped towards him. Before he could even react she had grabbed him and thrown him across the shop and into the display behind the counters.

"How ungentlemanly, shooting a lady in the chest. Weren't you ever taught any manners?"

Gideon stood quickly but apparently not fast enough. He had hoped to fire off a few more shots into the girl before she approached the counter, but as he stood, he found the bitch sitting crossed legged on the counter. She moved fast: freakishly fast.

"Rings, Mister Gideon. I am in a bit of a hurry."

Gideon threw a punch but she caught his fist: she was agile like a cat. Freakishly fast and agile like a fucking cat. She wrenched his hand to the right and cracked something within it. Gideon cried out in pain. She was fast, agile, and strong; and the damn crow was cawing loudly in the background.

"You've digressed Mister Gideon. I'll have to repeat myself." Shelly jumped off of the counter before she punched her fist threw the glass counter top and grabbed the biggest, nastiest hunting knife that was on display. Before Gideon could react, she twisted his broken wrist back, slapped his open palm onto the wooden topped counter beside the cash register, and stabbed the hunting knife through his fat, sweaty, little hand, pinning him to the counter top.

"My hand! My fucking hand!"

Shelly slapped her hand over his mouth. "I'm looking for an engagement ring. Gold. Modest diamond. In the back, yes?" Gideon nodded his head as he fought back tears. "It was pawned here a year ago by a regular customer of yours: Tin Tin. Would you like to know how I know that?" asked Shelly with a smile. "He confided it in me… with his dying breath." Shelly's smile faded. Her scars were burning. Her mind drifted to thoughts of rape… her rape and how after everything that had happened to her, they still took more. Tin Tin had taken and taken and taken. He took her hopes and dreams. He took her life. He took Eric's guitar. He took her leather bound books. He took her fucking wedding ring.

He profited from pain.

He profited from _her_ pain.

And so did Gideon.

Shelly tore apart his back room. Smashing televisions. Kicking down shelves. Ripping up Gideon's files.

"Hey! What are you doing? What are you doing?"

"Don't you know this game, Mister Gideon? It's a game in my favour, so I suggest you hurry and tell me what I want to know." Shelly grabbed a smashed television and threw it at a wall of fine crystal. "Smashed glass makes such a hollow sound," Shelly muttered as she crunched the broken crystal under her feet. "Sounds like a broken heart…" Shelly grabbed another smashed television, this time throwing it at a wall of ornate mirrors. "To hell with the bad luck if only to hear my heart beat once more."

"You are fucking batshit crazy, lady!" Gideon yelled from where he was still pinned to the counter. "Stop smashing up my shop!"

"Then tell me what I want to know, shithead!" Shelly screamed from the backroom as she put her fist through a window. The crow cawed from a shelf over Gideon's head; to Gideon's ears, it sounded as if the fucking thing was laughing at him.

"Alright, alright! The fucking rings are behind that counter: in the metal tin! Take them! Take all the fucking rings–I don't care! You can choke on them for all I care, you bitch! You fucking bitch!"

Shelly slid behind the counter, grabbing the metal tin, and sat cross-legged. She opened the tin and gagged on her own disgust at how many rings were inside of it.

_So many lives ruined…_ _did any of these people get revenge?_ She picked up a ring from the top of the pile and looked at it, a horror suddenly dawning on her. She knew the components of the ring Eric had given her–gold, modest diamond, she'd said it over and over again to the dense Gideon–but when she tried to put the pieces together, she couldn't remember what the ring looked like.

"I can't remember…" she muttered as tears sprung to her eyes. "I can't remember…"

"Can't remember what?" Gideon yelled from across the shop. "What are you doing?"

"It's quiet time Gidoen–"

"Like fuck it is!"

"It is if you don't want to lose your throat," Shelly muttered as calmly as she could. Her threat got through his thick head and the only sounds he uttered were pathetic moans about his hand.

The crow cawed softly from Shelly's shoulder. Shelly felt the same strange force she had when she had awakened in her coffin. She closed her eyes and one ring at a time, grabbed them from the tin. She found hers almost immediately. It was hot in her fingertips while the others had been ice cold… and it, of course, held her memories…

"I think Gabriel got in the walls, Shelly. I can hear something scratching in the attic." Eric had said to her one evening as she sat painting her nails.

"And you're just going to leave him up there?"

"You know I don't like the attic." Eric replied, looking away from her eyes.

"Since when?" Shelly asked, a suspicious smile creeping onto her lips. When Eric didn't reply she had shrugged, screwed the lid of her nail polish down, and headed to the attic. Eric followed close to her heels. As she pulled down the trap door, he was practically pushing her up the shaky ladder. "You sure Gabriel's up there?"

"Just look." He said, trying desperately to hide a smile.

Shelly had climbed the ladder to find the whole attic lit up with candles and strewn with roses. In the centre of the attic was a small velvet box. She opened it to discover a ring. Eric shouted up from the bottom of the ladder to ask if she had found anything and Shelly had to control herself from jumping from the small attic opening and into Eric's arms…

Shelly let tears run down her cheeks as she slid the ring onto her ring finger. The crow cawed again. Shelly knew her time to reminisce had passed. "Back to business then," she muttered as she silently slunk into the backroom for a few things that had caught her eye.

"Where are you?" Gideon yelled. "Where did you go?" He had been gently wiggling the knife back and forth and was very close to being unpinned from his counter.

"It's time to finish this, Mister Gideon." Shelly kicked down a barrel that stood near the front of the store. The contents that stood on the top of that barrel–small canisters of gasoline–spilled over the floor as she walked towards Gideon. He had managed to free himself from the counter top but, as Shelly pointed a shotgun at his face, it seemed like fruitless victory. "You have one chance to live."

"Take whatever you want! Take anything."

"Thank you," Shelly smiled as she grabbed Eric's guitar off of the wall. She slung it over her back before grabbing one of the gas canisters. "Now you're going to tell me where to find T-Bird and the rest of his little party pals."

Shelly's scars burned as she thought of the gang.

"No fucking way!"

Shelly tipped the canister upside down and dumped it over the counter top. "My patience runs thin, Mister Gideon."

"The Pit! They all hang out at a bar named The Pit! You can go to there and do whatever you like to the scumbags there–they fucking deserve it anyways! And FunBoy, FunBoy lives there, upstairs. Alright?"

"FunBoy?"

Unfortunately, Shelly remembered him all too well. He had been the first to rape her. He had long, tangled, greasy blonde hair, disgusting teeth and grey skin. Shelly had seen track marks up and down his arms as he had pounded in and out of her.

Shelly kicked out the glass counters that stood between her and Gideon. There was that anger and hate she had come to know so well. Gideon danced around behind the counters, yelling out curses as Shelly let out her hate all over his dirty, miserable little shop.

"Fuck me – stop wrecking my store! Fucking stop!"

"Stand still." Shelly commanded as she pointed the shotgun at Gideon again. Her anger bubbled and boiled just beneath her surface, but there would be more time for that later. For now, she took out the tin of rings and opened it. "Each one of these is a life. A life that you helped destroy," she said through gritted teeth as she threw them one by one at Gideon.

Now that Shelly had her own ring around her finger, these rings all felt hot to touch too; everyone she touched gave her their pain. And one by one, Shelly gladly took it.

Gideon, the coward that he was, dropped to his knees and put his hands together: begging. "Please, please don't kill me."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you. It's your job to tell the rest of them that I'm coming. Tonight." Shelly dropped the rest of the rings to the ground before turning her back and heading towards the door.

Gideon, with Shelly no longer pointing a gun in his face, let his anger surface. "They're gonna kill you! You walk outta here and they're gonna erase your sorry ass! Though first, they'll do something else to your _ass_."

Shelly stopped in the doorway to turn and look back, once more, on the pathetic, crooked, wicked man named Gideon. Without a thought concerning what he had just said to her, she commented: "Is that gasoline I smell?"

"No! No, don't do it!" Shouted Gideon.

It was all in vain of course. Shelly exited to the street before turning back and firing off the one round she had in the gun. The gasoline spilled on the floor burst into flames, as the fumes in the air burst everything else. A fireball engulfed the grimy pawn shop as Shelly stalked silently away into the night.


End file.
